Venetian Theater: Spicy Buffalo

So a few weeks ago the Queen and I were sitting around talking about how we hadn't gone to see a movie in forever.  She informed me that a new place called the Venetian Theater was opening a couple blocks away from my castle (in North Dallas at Trinity Mills and Midway).  It is a place styled after the Studio Movie Grill, where one can go, order real food off of a menu, real booze from a bar, and be waited on like in a restaurant.  She also informed me that there was a Groupon deal for some cheap tickets (INCLUDING A FREE SODA), so we thought we'd give it a try.  We arrived and presented our tickets and got our free drinks.  We both ordered Coke Zero, and were promptly given Diet Coke.  The Queen was highly unimpressed with this mistake, as the things she loves in this world are probably ranked in the following order:  Thanksgiving, Guacamole, Coke Zero, Chips and Salsa, Boise State football, back rubs, and Me.

After I calmed the Queen down and talked her off the ledge, we were guided down a long hall of very ornate decoration, some oddly placed Windows where we could see refrigerators and ice cream freezers, past the full bar, and to our theater.  I don't know why I thought this, but the layout was sort of weird or something.  Its hard to put into words.  I just felt unsettled.  Anyways, this place is pretty big, so maybe that's part of it.  The theaters are bigger than Studio Movie Grill, and I really liked it.  We plopped down in our big comfy chairs and started looking over the menu to see what we would have for dinner.

It is a rare occasion as I wander through this world stuffing my face that there is a diamond in the rough to be found.  As I search for the ultimate chicken wings, it is rare to go off the beaten path to find some wings that are truly great.  It happened in Austin at Beale Street Tavern, which are still among the best I've ever had.  Then there's places like Malarkey's Tavern in Dallas where I didn't expect much, and wasn't too impressed.  So when I saw wings on the menu at Venetian Theater, I thought I had a patriotic duty to test these wings and report on the findings.  I didn't have high hopes.  However, I was pleasantly surprised.

We ordered our food well before the movie started (we went to see the House at the End of the Street FYI), and I went with the Spicy Buffalo wings (as opposed to BBQ).  I was hoping it would arrive in time for me to get a picture, but unfortunately the wings did not arrive until the lights were already out and the movie was playing.  I didn't feel the need to incite a riot by whipping out my phone and taking a flash picture of chicken wings in a dark theater, so instead please see the artist rendering below which I think accurately depicts my experience.

The wings finally arrived, and it always takes a minute in the dark theater to get my bearings on things.  There was a plate with the wings, some celery sticks, and two cups of sauce.  One cup was the blue cheese, and the other cup was the buffalo sauce.  The wings were actually served having not been tossed in sauce.  That's a first for me, as I had never had to apply my own Buffalo sauce to chicken wings I have ordered.  Not a big deal, just odd.  However, I really enjoyed these wings once things got started.  They were served naked, and fried to a very crispy deliciousness.  The blue cheese was pretty weak, but the sauce was Buffalo sauce was good.  Good enough that the Queen decided to use it as a sauce for her french fries.  It had a respectable Buffalo flavor, not really that spicy, but good flavor.  There was plenty of sauce to go around, so dunking the wings in didn't become a logistical problem that one might fear.  I guess I could have poured the sauce onto the wings in retrospect.  Whatever.  The only real drawback to the wings were that they were smallish.  I think there were probably 8 or 9 in the order, and for the ten bucks they cost I would expect a little more.  However, a good crisp wing can make up for most any drawback, so this was indeed a diamond in the rough.  If and when we go back, I will be getting wings again for sure.  I recommend checking out the theater too.

Spicy Buffalo

Flavor: 7.5

Heat: 5

Overall: 7.5

Pizza Hut / Wingstreet: Buffalo Burnin' Hot

Welcome back my loyal subjects.  It has been too long.  With football season in full effect, the production department has taken a back seat, with the research and development still fully in action.  The boys down in the lab have been hard at work crunching the numbers and doing scientific experiments and whatever else scientists do to come up with some new data.  Luckily, the Queen and I made a trip for a chicken wing recently to help them out.  They were very grateful I'm sure.

Last Friday night, we were tossing around dinner ideas, and had discussed pizza.  I promised my baby pizza, so I was gonna get my baby some pizza.  Luckily, pizza places also sell chicken wings.  We decided on a Hawaiian style pizza and an order of Buffalo Burnin' Hot wings.  I didn't exactly have the highest of hopes for chicken wings coming from a fast-food-ish type place, especially one that doesn't specialize in chicken of any form.  I didn't have any faith in the flavor, the spice, or the execution.  However, once we got home we were shocked.

These wings were not bad.  In fact, pretty good.  They are naked wings, and pretty large as far as wings go. They were doused in a very thick sauce.  The sauce was pretty impressive.  It had good buffalo flavor, but not completely traditional.  There was something different about them, which the Queen described as tasting "Asian-y".  I think what she meant was that there was a hint of sweetness to them along with the spice.  Building on this theory, the sauce was also very thick as I said, so we believe this was a traditional style buffalo sauce infused with honey.  Its hard to explain, but it sort of had the consistency of honey, but obviously not THAT thick.  I mean that would be ridiculous.... maybe...

So we liked the flavor of the sauce.  It also had a pretty good kick to it.  It wasn't among the hottest you'll find out there, but for a fast-food chain these are some pretty spicy wings.  They fit nicely into the comfort zone as far as my spiciness palette goes.  Having been pleased with these wings, there were a couple of drawbacks.  They were dangerously oversauced, which led to a slight sogginess, but was dealt with swiftly by me dipping pizza crust into it.  And along with this oversauced angle, they weren't really crispy at all.  If you've read my work before, you know there's few things that get me going like a nice crispy chicken wing.  So all in all, I might not make these part of the regular rotation if I'm looking to just get some wings somewhere, but I do think these wings will become a regular feature in my rotation when we order pizza.  Very surprising, so I tip my crown to you Pizza Hut.

Buffalo Burnin' Hot:
Flavor: 7.5
Spice: 6.5
Overall: 7.5

BWW: Lemon Pepper, Spicy Garlic, etc.

So after a long Saturday spent celebrating the kickoff of college football season, the Queen and I decided to relax on Sunday, and meet up with my brother and his ladyfriend to split a chicken wing or 40.  From this point forward, he will be known as Skittles and she will be the A-Train.  They were unaware of my status as wing royalty, so this was quite the treat for them I'm sure.  Or maybe they think I am a complete nerd, but this would be coming from the couple who was rushing dinner because they had a WoW raid to get to.  Whatever, we're cut from the same cloth.  I digress.

So upon meeting Skittles and the A-Train at Buffalo Wild Wings in Lewisville, we discover a few things.  The service is pretty bad, but I get that feeling at every BWW we go to so I am not surprised.  We also sat in a booth next to a window, which had some scratching in the shape of a football on it.  This led to the discovery that I am the only one of our group who has ever used the word "graffito" in conversation.  We also discover the black cherry mojito.  Quite good.

The Queen and I decided to get 18 wings split into four flavors (the waitress seemed not thrilled with us wanting four flavors), and some buffalo chips.  We went with Thai Curry (our favorite, previously reviewed HERE), Spicy Garlic, Lemon Pepper rub, and Wild.  Upon arrival, the wings tossed in Wild sauce were quickly determined to actually be Blazin' Sauce, which I like, but we did not come for.  Due to this error, they will be stricken from the record and never spoken of again.

Our first new flavor is Lemon Pepper.  This is one of their new dry rubs and not a sauce.  I have to say this is the first one of their dry rubs I have tried, and this was hardly impressive.  BWW is a sauce-driven wing establishment and should probably stick to it.  They were pretty crispy as you can see in the photos, but were somewhat dry.  They also had neither the lemon nor the pepper that we would like in a lemon pepper wing.  These won't be in the regular rotation (we only got them because the menu threatened us by saying lemon pepper is here FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY).  If you want a good lemon pepper wing, go to Sauced or Wingstop.


Lemon Pepper rub
Flavor: 5.5
Spice: 0
Overall: 5.5

Our other new flavor tonight was Spicy Garlic.  We weren't really sure what to expect when we ordered these.  Would be be a garlic sauce with some pepper kick for the heat?  Would it be something like the garlic parmesan wings at Wingstop covered in powdered parmesan cheese?  When they came out they looked like they were covered in a buffalo sauce.  I think it might actually be a hybrid sauce like you might find at Pluckers (think spicy ranch at Pluckers). It seemed like a mixture of one of their buffalo style sauces and their garlic parmesan sauce.  It had a decent amount of heat which was pleasing, and had a garlic flavor that I noticed second.  The garlic was still noticeable which is always appreciated since sometimes wings advertised as containing garlic flavor have very little.  There's a good chance these will find their way into the regular rotation at BWW for us.  The Queen definitely liked these more than I did, but that's because she loved them.  I thought maybe she had a new favorite, but confirmed to me that Thai Curry is still her #1.  The only fault I could find is that these are very heavily sauced, which as you know by now can be highly dangerous to pants, shirts, nearby people's faces, and unprotected eyes.  These are still highly recommended so give them a shot.

Spiciy Garlic
Flavor: 8
Heat: 6
Overall: 8